


Stealing the Show

by aeli_kindara



Series: Supernatural Codas [16]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Dean Winchester Prays to Castiel, Dirty Talk, Episode Tag, Episode: s15e05 Proverbs 17:3, Getting Together, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Season/Series 15, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 03:17:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21469195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeli_kindara/pseuds/aeli_kindara
Summary: It’s been years since Dean prayed to Cas.Reallyprayed, with his heart in his throat and his back against the wall. In a hospital chapel:Whatever you did or didn't do, it doesn't matter, okay? We'll work it out. Please, man, I need you here.He’s done with that. What Cas did matters. Something went wrong, Dean’s ass.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Supernatural Codas [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/877383
Comments: 85
Kudos: 653





	Stealing the Show

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly a 15.05 coda, but with some 15.03 and 15.04 in the mix too.
> 
> Content warning for some alcohol abuse and a couple brief instances of suicidal ideation.
> 
> Thanks to Remmy for the beta!

Dean doesn’t pray to Cas. Not exactly, anyway.

He has in the past. _ I am fresh out of options, so — please. _ Or: _ Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray to Castiel to get his feathery ass down here. _ Or: _ Cas! Don’t be a dick. Do you copy? _

He used to a lot when Cas was dead. After the Leviathans. Not dead, as it turned out, but his mind wiped clean of angelic memories; living with some skeezy chick named Daphne. It usually happened when Dean was drinking, feeling just low and just high enough for the words to come fizzing up out of his chest. Not much he cares to remember — furious rants and recriminations. Those gave way, after a while, to other things. _ They’ve taken you and Bobby and my car and my goddamn _ face _ and what exactly am I still doing here, huh? Tell me, Cas-ti-el — _ he remembers enunciating it that way, mocking — _ what the _ fuck _ is the point? _

He also remembers, sometimes, pulling Cas’s trenchcoat out of the bottom of his duffel. Splaying a hand across it, flat palm. _ Cas, I don’t know how to fucking go on without you. You told me good things do happen, well — not without you they don’t. Please. _

Dean doesn’t think Cas ever heard those prayers. He wasn’t Cas at the time, anyway — Emmanuel or some shit like that. Maybe it’s a name thing. You gotta say who you mean.

That’s how he prays these days. Keeps the words locked inside his head; doesn’t even think Cas’s name. He doesn’t want these prayers getting anywhere near their target. Not like Cas would even give a shit, if they did.

It’s been years since he prayed to Cas. _ Really _ prayed, with his heart in his throat and his back against the wall. In a hospital chapel: _ Whatever you did or didn't do, it doesn't matter, okay? We'll work it out. Please, man, I need you here. _

He’s done with that. What Cas did matters. Something went wrong, Dean’s ass.

So he doesn’t pray. Not really. He just holds all the things that make him think of Cas — the small things and the big ones, his worries for Sam, the convenience store aisles he thinks for a moment he’ll see Cas down at the end at, tilting his head quizzically at a carton of eggs — carefully in his head. Finds the words to hold them. Sets them aside, a museum of what might have been.

\---

“Hey, uh,” says Sam, that first day after the averted end of the world. He’s holding his tablet; he’s frowning. “You seen Cas?”

Dean blinks up at him. His vision’s a little hazy, color swimming. He’s been drinking long enough now that the question’s not really _ how many _ so much as _ how fast. _

_ He fucked off. _ The words are right there on his tongue. _ Said he doesn’t need us anymore. Left, like everyone leaves. _

Something cold clenches in his gut. They’ve won; Chuck’s gone. They’re free.

Which means Sam’s gonna leave too. How could he not? It’s the only thing the kid’s ever wanted. Maybe not right away — with his head all messed up over Rowena, over Mom and Jack and fucking everything, but — eventually. Sooner or later it’ll just be Dean and a bunker full of ghosts, and none of them the kind he can salt and burn.

“No,” he says. He pours himself another finger of whiskey, eyes it for a moment before tossing it back. There’s the burn, at least. Heh. He should be shooting tequila. _ Get it? Salt and burn — _

Sam blinks like an owl. “He’s not in his room.”

Time was, Cas didn’t have a room. It’s not like Cas _ sleeps. _ But Dean made one up for him anyway, ordered him one of the nice memory foam mattresses, set him up with his own Netflix profile he always forgets to use. Forgot to use. “Well, I don’t know where he is, Sam. I’m not his keeper.”

“Right,” says Sam. “I just — I had a question for him, about some of Rowena’s — you know what? Never mind.”

He leaves. Like he’s going to leave. _ I miss you, you asshole, _ Dean thinks, though he knows it’s not at Sam.

Maybe they have tequila in the liquor cabinet. Dean goes to find out.

\---

The day after that, he decides he’s gonna get his shit the fuck together, for Sammy’s sake.

He stops drinking. Stops, as in, doesn’t reach for the bottle the moment he rolls over in bed. He waits out the hangover; takes a long shower; tunes up a few things on his Baby. Then he goes grocery shopping.

Sam’s always going on about veggie bacon. Meat substitutes; the environmental consequences of industrial farming; how they’ve saved this world often enough they should _ maybe give a damn about its future, Dean. _

Might cheer him up if Dean bought some.

It takes him a long time to find where they stock it; in the end, he has to ask a sales associate, who points out the aisle and gives him a funny look before she hurries off again. Dean shakes his head, inspecting the package. Sammy always was a weird fucking kid.

_ What, you think if you start buying this hippie crap it’ll convince him to stay? _

The voice in his head is sneering. For a moment it sounds like Michael, like fucking Alastair, though Dean knows it’s just his own brain.

He feels sick, a tide of self-loathing clawing at his gut. He drops the veggie bacon where he found it. Goes to get the real thing. Ground beef. A package of cookies. He thinks for a moment and then goes back for veggies — tortillas — stuff for burritos.

_ Hey, _ he thinks, picturing Cas in jeans and a hoodie, mouth full and face slack with pleasure, _ remember how much you loved burritos, when you were human? Never got to make you _ my _ recipe. Woulda blown your goddamn mind. _

He makes burritos. Sam doesn’t come out of his room. Dean eats them by himself.

\---

On the third day, Dean pulls out his phone and stares at it for an hour. _ I miss you, _ he thinks. _ I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please come home. _

He doesn’t enter anything. Doesn’t start a single word. Can’t let Cas see that little typing icon, if he’s out there somewhere doing the exact same thing.

\---

They hunt. Sam’s distant, aching, furious — and it’s not hard for Dean to fill in the gaps. Grief is a vacuum; he expands into it. He meets an awesome mascot. Buys a killer hot dog from the vendor who does the high school football games.

Dean just needs to be strong — for his family. To be _ happy, _ for his family; to be the one who’s okay. That’s fine. He’s done it before. It’s great, in fact. Take care of Sam, and — and when the time comes — be ready to let him go.

Once he asked Sam to keep the faith. It’s about time he returned the favor.

When they get home he gives Baby’s trunk a deep clean. She’s sorely in need of it; there are shotgun shells and loose spell ingredients tucked into all her nooks and crannies. Dean pulls them out, identifies them, sorts them. He finds an old box of fake IDs — ones they haven’t used in forever. Agents Ford and Hamill. He has a good chuckle over that.

_ Weird to think I didn’t even know you then, _ he thinks, to the not-Cas in his head. _ Feels like fucking forever ago. I guess it wasn’t. _

He studies his own picture. It’s not like that Dean didn’t have issues. But it was before Hell. Before the apocalypse; before Sammy and the demon blood. Before the Mark of Cain or Michael or any of that damn bullshit.

That’s what they need. Back to basics. Wildlife officers; how cool was that? There’s a store downtown that would sell him the gear.

“Hey,” he tells Sam later, around a mouthful of burger. “Heard something on the radio about some animal attacks. Sounded weird. You wanna look into it?”

“Animal attacks?” Sam repeats. “All right. Where?”

Dean shrugs. There’s bound to be something somewhere. “Dunno. Didn’t catch that part. Figured I’d let the research ninja do his thing. I’m gonna make a supply run — want anything?”

“Dean,” says Sam, “the kitchen’s already bursting at the seams. What the hell else are you gonna buy?”

“Can always have more junk food, Samuel.” Dean claps him on the shoulder on his way to the stairs.

He resists doing a little fist-pump of victory when his brother calls after him, “It’s _ Sam._”

\---

“Wouldn’t it be great,” says the werewolf vic of the week, “if everything was just planned out for you?”

_ No, _ Dean wants to snap, his composure cracking, the buoy he’s been floating on wobbling beneath him. _ No, it wouldn’t be fucking great. _

But he lies awake thinking about it later. Can’t help but wonder what Cas might say. _ I keep bitching about Chuck jerking me and Sam around, but I got nothing on you, huh. Warrior of God and all that bullcrap. They fucking _ brainwashed _ you into doing what they said. _

He thinks about pleading with Cas through a haze of blood. About Cas’s face, cold. Cas’s angel blade, gleaming silver in the dim light of Lucifer’s crypt.

He thinks about the spark of warmth, then horror, kindling in Cas’s eyes.

_ Wasn’t really planned out for me. I mean, by Chuck maybe, but my dad — he never had a plan. Always used to say this would be the year. He was close. Soon he’d get the thing that killed Mom and we could move back to Lawrence and Sam could be a normal kid. _

_ White picket. Apple pie. _

His breath is fast and shallow in his chest. 

_ He never said I could be a normal kid, Ca— _

He stops himself. Chokes slightly on the effort of not thinking Cas’s name.

There are sleeping pills in the bottle on the nightstand beside him. He could take a couple. Spend a little while, at least, not thinking about a damn thing.

He could take more than a couple and not have to worry about thinking ever again.

Dean shudders and turns away. This is about Sam now. He’s not gonna do that to Sam.

\---

The vic of the week turns out to be fucking _ Lilith. _

Sam patches Dean up afterward. Three little strips of surgical tape for the slashes on each of his cheeks. _ Did we ever make you watch the Princess Bride? _ Dean thinks. _ My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father — _

“Are there more?” Sam asks.

Dean briefly toys with the idea of lying. Instead he shrugs out of his jacket. There’s a dark patch of blood on his tee, still growing. It’s a longer cut than the others, deeper. Sam makes a disgruntled noise in his throat and wets a cotton ball with alcohol.

This one takes longer. Dean breathes through his nose, trying not to flex the tape Sam’s lining up, strip after strip.

Finally Sam pulls away and looks at him expectantly.

Dean sighs and tells his brother he’ll handle the last one himself.

The inside of his jeans are stiff and sticky. He winds up having to cut off his underwear — it’s too matted with blood to peel free and shimmy down over his hips.

The wound runs sideways down his inner thigh. A little deeper, a little farther back, and he’d be hamstrung. That or neutered. Dean snorts a small laugh.

As it is, he has to contort a little to reach. Sit up on the toilet with one heel hooked on the edge of the bathtub, legs splayed. The lid of the tank digs into his back. He shifts his balls out of the way for access and starts to clean the wound.

He must look fucking ridiculous. Some sicko’s idea of porn — _ near-emasculation aftercare. _ Maybe that’s what Chuck’s into. Hell, Lilith said as much: _ his very weird, very pervy obsession with _you.

Is Chuck watching right now? Probably. He can probably see inside Dean’s head.

Maybe Dean’s thoughts are only the things Chuck puts there.

No. No, that can’t be right; there are too many times Dean’s defied him. Acted against Chuck’s will. And not just for the drama of the story, either — he remembers the graveyard. The gun on the ground. Chuck’s nostrils flaring white. _ Pick it up! _

Besides, Chuck apparently wanted him to be into Lilith, which — no. Just no.

Dean snorts, setting his cleaning supplies aside. _ I mean, she’s Claire’s age, _ he thinks, imagining Cas laughing with him, shaking his head and dropping his chin into a smile. _ That’s just gross. Does he think I’d bang anything that moves? _

Maybe Chuck _ is _ listening in. Maybe he’s pissed about it.

And suddenly Dean’s feeling reckless. Suddenly he’s remembering a long-ago alleyway, backside of a brothel, the laughter bubbling out of his chest. His hand on Cas’s shoulder. The words he almost said: _ y’know, you’d have to do a lot worse than call out a couple daddy issues to strike out with _me.

Dean’s spent a lot of time wondering what would’ve happened if he’d done what he thought about, just then. Spun Cas against a wall and sunk down to his knees. _ It’s not the five-star experience, but I’ll see what I can do. _

What would Cas be like? Nervous and shy, letting Dean do all the work, or would he — grip Dean’s hair and fuck back into his throat? Would he realize Dean could take it? Would he close his eyes, or would he want to watch? The stretch of Dean’s lips around his dick —

Shit, maybe Dean’s whole life _ has _ been an elaborate fucking porno.

It’s not gonna be Chuck’s version, though.

Maybe it’s about time Dean put on a fucking show.

He shifts himself on the toilet bowl lid, looking for a more comfortable position. _ I mean, don’t get me wrong, _ he tells his imaginary Cas. _ I pretty much have — banged anything that moves. Chicks, dudes. I like it all. _

He checks on the wound. The bleeding has slowed to a near halt; it can wait. Emboldened, he cups his own balls. Runs an open palm up his dick, thumbs the head. Wraps his fingers around it, arching into his own grip as he starts to get hard.

_ You know what I think about most, though? You. _

He imagines Cas watching him. Appearing there in the doorway, too close, like he used to back when he had wings. His lips parting in surprise. His eyes darkening.

_ Freaking angel dick. All I want. Since the first day I met you. _

He doesn’t have lube. He raises his free hand to his mouth; wets a finger. Wraps his lips around it like he means it.

_ Think about getting my mouth on you. _

Dean pulls his finger free with a small pop. He has to adjust his angle slightly. Fit’s tight; long time since he did this. He slides in by adjustments and degrees, crooks a knuckle and sighs at the familiar spark of pleasure. His dick jerks hungrily in his hand.

_ Think about you fucking me. You ever do that with a guy? It’s different, but just wait. It’s fucking amazing. _

It’s an awkward position — splayed in the tiny bathroom, working himself between two hands, trying not to rattle the toilet loud enough for Sam to hear. He shuts his eyes. Imagines Cas moving in — fingers clamping over Dean’s wrists. Pulling his hands free. Taking their place.

_ D’you think Chuck’s watching? Fucking let him, man. This ain’t for him. It’s for you. _

When Dean comes he has to bite down on his lip to keep from making a sound. He eases himself back into a sitting position, a little embarrassed, and uses a discarded towel to clean himself off.

Then he finishes taping up the wound. Yells at Sam to bring him spare underwear, shrugs his jeans back on, packs up the med kit. Shoulders his duffel and carries it out to the Impala. Takes the wheel for the long drive home.

\---

Sam thinks they need to tell Cas about Chuck and Lilith, and he isn’t wrong.

Dean lets him make the call. “Cas might, uh — not want to talk to me right now,” he mutters, and Sam does him the favor of not calling him on his bullshit. Just dials and lets the phone ring.

There’s no answer. Sam leaves a voicemail. Dean doesn’t think about, _ What if he’s already dead. _ He doesn’t think about, _ What if Chuck got bored of him. _ He doesn’t think about, _ What if Chuck got pissed — because of me. _

Does it even fucking matter? Cas wants nothing to do with them. Maybe things are simpler — safer — if he’s dead. Maybe he’s in a better place.

God — freaking _ God _ — is coming for them, and they don’t even have the gun.

That’s the part that stings the most. If they’d only known — Dean should’ve kept it somewhere safer. Kept it in the _ trunk, _ at least, with its Devil’s trap. They have protocols for this shit. He’s gotten sloppy. It’s his fault it’s gone.

If they had the gun —

_ It wouldn’t have even been hard, _ he tells Cas, lying in bed that night with his arms crossed tight on his chest. _ It woulda been me. You know? That’s easy. It was always supposed to be me — I was supposed to die years ago. If Chuck didn’t keep bringing me back, I guess. Saving me for more of his fucked up games. _

Dean’s tried to fall on so many fucking swords. This, at least, makes sense. A final showdown. God can’t bring him back to life if God is dead.

But the gun’s gone.

_ It’s not fucking fair, _ he thinks, tears stinging suddenly at his eyelids. _ I’m supposed to — I was supposed to fucking take care of Michael. I’m supposed to be, to be — twenty thousand leagues under the sea or whatever, shut in that damn box. Then Jack wouldn’t have ever lost his soul. Mom would be alive. You’d be here — _

Grief hits him like a wall.

Dean sits up in bed. It’s hard to breathe; his lungs are hiccuping in his chest. “I’m not even — supposed to be here,” he gasps, throat grating. _ I was only ever supposed to be a tool. To end things right. _ “Daddy’s blunt little instrument, right? Shoulda — shoulda gone out years ago, but you —”

Cas pulled him from Hell. Dean remembers it, most of the time, in a clinical, efficient sort of way. Slicing souls. Then, boom: blaze of light. Angel grace, a hand on his shoulder, passing out from the pain. Waking up in a pine box.

He doesn’t usually dare remember how it _ felt. _

How the dull, vicious misery of demonhood had already fused with his cells. How Cas’s fire burned it all out of him — Dean remembers screaming. Remembers feeling _ seen through, _ every last inch of him — his petty thoughts and his dumbest secrets, the times he screwed himself up in the bathtub to cry as a child where no one could hear, the course and the depth of his love.

He remembers feeling whole. Feeling known. Feeling, for one brief shining instant, like no one’s weapon — like only himself, and worthy of every good thing. Worthy of the love, the light, rebuilding his very bones.

‘Course, that was Cas, Dean knows now. Heaven’s orders. All a sham — just another job for Dean. Bringing him back to be someone else’s weapon. Again, and again, and again.

Whatever it might’ve felt like — Cas only saved Dean for what he could _ do _ for him. For Heaven.

Suddenly, Dean’s standing, knees shaking, his heart beating fast in his throat.

_ My powers are failing, _ Cas said, _ and — and I've tried to talk to you, over and over, and you just don't want to hear it. You don't care. _

Cas is a weapon, too.

But Dean’s_ told _ Cas how he feels. More times than he can count. Maybe not the — the jerking-off-in-a-bathroom parts, but the rest. _ I need you. We need you. _ Cas is family; Dean’s made that perfectly clear.

_ I’m dead to you, _ Cas said, and Dean made that pretty clear, too.

How has he fucked up this badly? _ I need you _ — but Cas is the same as Dean is. Spent his whole life being needed, one job after another. Not just a few decades, either — thousands and thousands of years.

_ You and Sam have each other. I think it's time for me to move on. _

Dean says, “Cas —”

But no. That’s not how he wants to do this; alone in the empty air. He doesn’t want to pretend.

He nearly fumbles his phone twice picking it up. Yanks the charger out of the wall. His thumbs are shaking; he scrolls through his contacts. Usually he doesn’t need to do that. Usually Cas is one of his last few calls.

The phone rings. Once, twice, three times.

Four.

Dean screws his eyes shut. He’ll leave a voicemail if he has to. He thinks, _ Cas — _

The fifth ring cuts off halfway through. The static changes.

There’s no voice. Dean pulls the phone away from his ear, glancing at the screen — it says the call’s connected. Does he hear someone breathing? Does Cas breathe?

He presses the phone, again, to his ear; to his cheek. “Cas?”

_ Hello, Dean, _ he imagines, the familiar rumble of Cas’s voice. But he doesn’t get it. Only — quiet, almost grudging: “Yes.”

\---

Dean takes a deep, shaky breath.

“_Cas,_” he says. “I’m — shit, man, I’m glad you’re okay. I’ve been scared — Chuck’s back, and I thought he might —”

“Yes,” says Cas again, careful and clipped. “I received Sam’s messages. I will do what I can to ascertain a location for Chuck, and for Lilith as well.”

“Cas —”

“Thank you for calling, Dean. I’ll inform you if I have any success.”

He’s hanging up. Desperation claws at Dean’s gut. “Cas — _ wait._”

A brief hesitation at the other end of the line.

“I fucked up,” Dean blurts. “I was a dick to you and I’m — Cas, I’m _ so _ fucking sorry. I — I don’t want you gone. I want you here, man. I need you here.”

It’s the same words again; he’s a _ fucking _ idiot. Cas begins, distantly, “Dean —”

“And I don’t mean I — need you like — for your angel mojo or, or your help with Chuck or on cases or — that’s not what I mean. It’s not what I ever meant.” He takes a deep breath. He doesn’t know the words. “I mean it’s — easier to live in my own skin when you’re here. I mean you’re — my family.”

Absolute silence. Dean checks the call again. It’s still live.

“I want you here,” he says in a low voice. “I want to — listen, like you said. I want you to talk to me.”

He waits. But there’s no answer — no sudden flow of confessions. Just a hitched intake of breath and then a silence that stretches on and on.

Dean looks at his feet. His knees are shaking visibly. He sits back down on his bed. He stares at the wall. At his row of books; the names on their spines.

Finally, he breaks. “Cas?”

“I don’t —” Cas’s voice is raspy. Thick with emotion. “I don’t know what to say. I —”

Dean closes his eyes. “Did you hear?” he asks. He needs to know, suddenly — if he’s been fooling himself all this time. “Any of what I’ve been saying? When I — prayed to you?”

There’s another long pause. Then Cas’s voice, gentler this time. “I don’t think I’ve been able to sense prayer for a little while. But I —” He hesitates, on the cusp of something. “You could tell me again. In person. If you wanted.”

Dean can’t mask the nervous rush of air, released at last from his lungs. He’s smiling; he knows it creeps into his voice. “I’d like that.”

He can hear Cas smiling too. “I’m about — a day and a half’s drive away. I’ll be there Friday morning, if you —”

But Dean can’t wait that long. His pulse is jumping in his veins. He digs the phone close to his ear and asks, heart thumping, “What if I met you halfway?”

\---

It isn’t hard to explain to Sam. “I’m gonna take Baby for a spin. Blow off some steam. Might not be home for a couple days.”

There have been times when his brother would’ve questioned that. Now he just gives a tired nod and waves Dean on.

They’ve picked the town of Livingston, Montana. Halfway from home to the Washington coast — Dean wonders if Cas has been revisiting where Jack was born. The cabin on the shore. The place where he died; the charred remains of his own pyre.

There’s a paper map in the Impala’s glovebox, a relic from Dad — must’ve bought it back before they all knew America’s interstates by heart. Dean taught Jack to use this thing once. Now he traces his route. Hop on I-80 in Kearney. State roads to skip Cheyenne; ride 25 ‘til it merges with 90 and on in.

Livingston’s on the Yellowstone River. Pretty country. Not too far from that cabin of Rufus’s Dean and Sam holed up in one time. There’s a little town just south of it marked on the map as _ Pray. _

Dean snorts a laugh at that. Folds up the map and returns it to its place. Turns his Baby’s key.

\---

He makes it to Livingston first.

It doesn’t surprise him; Cas drives like the geriatric he is. Dean stops at a diner for a burger and a cup of coffee and borrows the yellow pages. He finds the first motel. “Jim Rockford,” he says when they ask his name. He pays in cash.

Then he sits on the end of the bed and fidgets. He checks the time; it’s still an hour or two shy of when he should start worrying. He turns on the TV and flips through channels. Nothing catches his attention. He turns it off again.

If he’s going to twiddle his thumbs, he might as well be productive about it. Dean goes to the Impala and loads some guns into a duffel, grabs his cleaning kit with his other hand. It hasn’t been long since he last did this, but — hey. Can never be too prepared.

He sidles through the motel room door, arms full, then drops everything carefully onto the second bed. He frowns down at his collection — forgot Sam’s favorite shotgun — and turns back to the door.

Cas is standing there.

He’s wearing his trenchcoat, like always, and the blue tie. Arms hanging loose at his sides. His hair sticks up all over, rumpled and messy. There are bags under his eyes, but they’re blazing blue.

“Hello, Dean,” he says.

His voice is warm gravel. It hits Dean low in the gut. “Jesus, Cas,” he manages before his knees cut out from under him. He sits down hard on the bed.

Cas takes a step closer, frowning. “Are you all right?”

Dean opens his mouth. _ I’m fine, _ he means to say, but the words won’t come. Cas takes another step and closes the door behind him. Crosses the room.

“Dean,” he says, and touches his cheek.

It takes a moment for Dean to understand why. Cas closes his eyes and frowns. Then, slowly — ever so slowly — warmth unfurls across Dean’s cheekbone. The surgical tape peels away.

When Dean reaches up to check, his skin is smooth, unmarred. His fingers brush Cas’s for an instant. Then Cas reaches for the other side.

“No — no, hang on,” Dean tells him, voice low. “I’m fine. Don’t waste your powers on —”

“You are not a waste.” There’s heat to Cas’s voice, and iron, and Dean’s protest dies in his throat. Cas presses a thumb to his cheek, and the cut heals — faster this time. Almost hot enough to burn.

Then he steps away. Dean swallows against the loss. Cas hesitates for a moment, then sits on the other bed and leans forward, hands folded, arms propped on his knees.

For a moment he looks as lost for words as Dean feels. His tongue darts out, almost imperceptibly, to wet his lip. “You told me you prayed?”

Dean’s face is burning. He’s off balance; he’s not ready. “I — yes. I guess.”

Cas looks up to meet his eyes. “I’ll listen.”

Dean feels his face color further.

What is Cas expecting — some grand confession? He already _ did _ that. Already reached inside his guts and wrenched them open and poured it all out over the phone. Does Cas think he has more inside him? That he can really — say any of the things he’s left unsaid?

“It’s nothing interesting, dude,” he mutters. He looks down at his boots. “I mean — just stupid shit. Like, uh — I made burritos the other day. Kept thinking ‘bout how much you liked burritos when you were human and how — I thought we’d have time. Where I, I could make you my own recipe, about — I thought maybe you’d want to stay.”

Cas’s body is very still. He’s staring at Dean, and Dean can’t tell what the emotion is on his face.

“And about — your freaking Netflix queue.” He cringes at his own words. “I made you your own profile, man, but you’re always using mine anyway, filling it up with — Great British Bake Off and shit and then getting ahead of me and I wind up missing episodes —”

Subtly, impossibly, Cas’s mouth quirks in a smile.

And it feels like light is blazing through him. Like he’s soaring free of the Pit, his fears immolating — like the only thing in front of him is the hardest task in the world. So he might as well try.

“About how,” he says, voice creaking. His knuckles are white, too-tight, on his thigh. “How — I haven’t wanted anyone else. Not in a long time. It’s just you.”

He hears Cas gasp.

Dean has to do a double take to make sure he heard right. The sudden intake of breath; the squeak of springs as Cas rocks back on the bed, surprise like a physical blow. His cheeks are pink and white. Eyes impossibly blue.

“And I get,” Dean grates, “if you want me to shut up about that and never say it again. And I get if I’ve been — too much of a dick and you’re not — and you’re done with me. But —”

“Dean Winchester,” says Castiel, standing abruptly, and for a moment Dean thinks he sees wings, flaring wide and dark across the motel walls. “Please shut up.”

Dean drops his gaze. He’s not going to cry — he’s not going to _ fucking _ cry. “I’m sorry.”

Shadows move.

His eyes are blurred. He can’t look up. Cas is leaving.

Firm fingers grip his chin and tilt it up again.

And it’s Cas — Cas looking down at him with something soft in the set of his mouth, with something wild and hopeful in his eyes.

Only then, suddenly, he’s frowning — gaze dropping to Dean’s chest. “You’re still hurt. I couldn’t sense it before — why didn’t you tell me?”

Dean’s breath stutters. Cas reaches down to ruck up his shirt, up over his ribs, exposing the slash on his belly — and his breath stops.

He holds it as Cas bends close. His lungs are made of stone. There’s warmth coming off of Cas’s skin; warmth coming off of his dwindling grace.

Then he touches the wound, and heat flares, the healing surging to his command.

It leaves Dean gasping. But Cas doesn’t pull his hands away — he curves a thumb around Dean’s rib, then down to his hip. He’s frowning, intent.

He goes to unbuckle Dean’s jeans.

Dean makes a muffled cry. He almost twists away, but then he doesn’t — falls back on his elbows instead. He tips his head briefly to the ceiling, struggling for air. When he looks back down Cas is watching him, hands gone still where they’re gripping his fly.

“Is this all right?”

“Y—” Dean’s voice emerges as a croak. He swallows. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. “Yes.”

Cas nods in acknowledgment, then unzips Dean’s fly and draws his pants down to his knees.

This wound isn’t the worst one — that was the one on his belly. But it takes Cas a moment, studying it, before he does anything. Dean risks a look downward, trying not to tremble. The line of red is lurid, carving across his thigh, vanishing inside his boxer briefs.

The heat spreads slower this time. Dean gasps, hips hitching, and in spite of himself a thread of arousal curls through him. Cas is just kneeling there watching him, so close —

And then the healing is done and he’s looking up at Dean, eyes serious.

They both speak at the same time. Dean starts, “Did you really not know —”

Cas says, “I wish I’d been there.”

Dean’s breath hitches. That’s guilt carved in the lines of Cas’s face, sorrow weighing on his eyes. And Dean’s lurching forward, nearly stumbling, entrapped in his jeans — he’s sinking to face Cas. Their knees knock together on the floor.

“Hey,” he says, gently. Is he allowed to touch Cas’s face? He dares it, smoothing a thumb over the lines of worry beside his eye. “Hey, it’s okay — all right? You’re okay.”

“I — didn’t think you’d ever tell me,” Cas says.

Dean sucks in a breath. The revelation rocks him.

Then he takes Cas’s face carefully in both hands and kisses him on the mouth.

Cas goes very still.

For a long minute, they’re frozen there like that, lips brushing lips. Then Dean starts to pull away.

Cas makes a desperate sound in his throat and surges after him.

Their mouths collide again, and they’re kissing — urgent, open-mouthed, tangling tongues. Dean moans and lets Cas press him back against the box spring, a hand on his collarbone, on his bicep, on his thigh — a hand on his dick, running fingers over thin fabric of its length. Dean nearly yells, and Cas kisses him deeper, fingertips pressing hard on the back of his skull.

They’re not close enough. Cas presses nearer still, awkward tangled legs jammed too close, and Dean loses his balance and falls sideways onto the floor.

He’s pinned under Cas’s body. That’s entirely all right; he’s fine with that. But Cas is suddenly shaking, is sucking in deep miserable breaths, and Dean reaches up to touch his ribs, his chest. “Hey,” he says. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Cas shakes his head. And Dean gets it; the horror of the last few weeks. The misery of handling it alone — and Cas _ has _ been alone, even before he left. Dean wasn’t there for him.

A part of him thinks he should get up right now and leave Cas in peace. That he doesn’t deserve this — hasn’t earned any right to be a part of Cas’s life. That anyone but him would be better.

He ignores it.

“Hey,” he says again. “Let me take care of you, okay?” He works an arm up so he can cradle Cas’s face. “I’ve got you. We’re all right. Let’s just move to the bed. Cas, you hearing me?”

Cas gives a shuddering nod.

He pulls back enough to let Dean sit up, and then Dean helps him to his feet. Strips Cas out of his trenchcoat; unknots his tie. Pulls back the covers and sits him down on the bed, then kneels down to unlace his shoes.

Cas goes where Dean takes him. He tucks himself obediently under the covers at Dean’s gesture, and Dean hesitates before shrugging off his own jacket, kicking out of his boots. He goes to pull his jeans back up — he doesn’t want Cas to think he has to —

Cas snakes a hand out from under the sheets to stop him. “Off."

Dean hesitates. Cas tightens his grip.

“All right, all right.” Dean slides his pants off his legs — first one, then the other. He pulls his socks off as he goes. When he looks back, Cas is propped on one elbow, watching him.

Feeling self-conscious in only his t-shirt and underwear, Dean slides into bed beside him.

They start slow. Languid kisses, noses bumping where they’re both aligned on the pillow; Dean’s hands skimming over Cas’s sides. Starting down the buttons of his shirt — working them loose, one by one. He lets his hands explore the taut, smooth skin of Cas’s chest, his stomach.

Cas follows suit — hands wandering over Dean’s ribs, pushing his shirt out of the way, exploring. They dip inside the waistband of Dean’s underwear, making him gasp, then move to straddle Cas, catching his hands. “Hey, no. Let me.”

He kisses his way down Cas’s chest, underneath the covers. Follows the arch of his ribs, the sensitive places in the hollows of his hips. “This okay?” he murmurs, as he undoes the button of Cas’s pants.

“_Dean,_” says Cas, hands in his hair.

Dean strips him down. Draws back to look at Cas’s dick, flushed and bobbing with want, then wraps his lips around it and takes it as deep as he can go.

“_Dean!_” says Cas again, hips lurching, and Dean’s out of practice with this but he doesn’t choke. Swallows around Cas, squeezing tight, and Cas gasps out something that’s half a sob and tugs on Dean’s hair and Dean takes the message and starts to move.

He loves this. Has always kinda loved this, but this is _ Cas _ — Cas’s taste and smell filling his senses. Cas’s breathing wild with the effort of restraint; Cas’s hands clutching at the back of his skull. The curls brushing his nose when he sinks as low as he can go are Cas’s; the heartbeat thudding against his tongue is Cas’s. Dean shifts his balance so he can splay his hands over Cas’s hips — so he can reach up to touch his belly, his chest; down to explore his thighs. His balls, tight and heavy, and Dean can practically taste it — wants Cas spilling down his throat. Letting go. Pumping deep, again and again and again —

But Cas is tugging urgently at his hair. “Dean,” he’s saying, “Dean, I want to see your face —”

And Dean can’t deny him — not a goddamn thing.

He surges up the bed. Cas is wrestling his underwear free, palming his ass, his hips. Their dicks brush together, Cas’s slick and hot, and Dean gasps as Cas wraps a hand around them — around both of them, stroking roughly, thrusting up into his own grip. With his other hand, he yanks Dean down and kisses him, hard, licking into his mouth.

He must be tasting himself. The thought makes Dean dizzy with lust. He groans and grinds his hips into Cas’s fist.

“I love you,” Cas whispers fiercely, biting Dean’s lip. “I have wanted you since —”

“Wanted to do this since,” Dean gasps, “since the brothel, maybe earlier —”

“You are _ incredibly _ slow,” Cas tells him, jacking harder, and Dean nearly loses his balance. It’s _ so _good, fireworks good, explosions going off in his chest and his head and his gut, in his hips, and he’s going to —

Cas thrusts powerfully against him, nearly slipping free of his own grip, and is coming, and coming, and coming — hot splatters across Dean’s belly, his chest, his shirt. He’ll need to clean that, goddamnit. And he’s following Cas, heat unspooling inside him, welling up to choke him with desperate bliss.

It takes several minutes to gather his senses. He’s collapsed on top of Cas’s chest, their bellies sealed together, a sticky mess. His heart is pounding. Cas’s arms are tight around his back.

“Since when?” Dean asks, muffled in the curve of Cas’s neck.

“What?” Cas’s voice sounds distant, hazy, fucked out.

“You said you’ve wanted me since,” Dean repeats. “Since when?”

It takes Cas a moment to answer. When he does, his voice is slow, contemplative. “Since I knew you, probably. But I noticed when — when you told me to unbutton my shirt.”

Dean has to think about that. “What — for that chick in Idaho?”

“Nora,” Cas agrees. “It made me realize, rather abruptly, that I didn’t want her looking at my chest nearly — nearly as much as I wanted you.”

Dean snorts. “Trust me. I was looking,” he says.

\---

“My powers are fading,” Cas comments, a while later. “I’m — not as upset as I could be.”

Dean’s been dozing. He stirs, nuzzling closer to Cas’s skin. “Are you okay? Do you know why?”

“I think so,” says Cas. “And no, I’m not sure, but — it’s not the worst thing in the world. I would like to try your burrito recipe.”

Dean goes still. “Cas.”

“And I’d like to — well, if my powers can help us in the war against God, I want to have them, but — I liked being human. Everything was richer, more intense. I — I think I would like it again, if I knew my family were safe, and if — if I could be there with them.”

“You’d be mortal.” Dean’s not sure how he feels about that. “You’d get old and die.”

Cas hums in agreement. “Of all the ways to go, old age does seem preferable.”

They’re quiet for a while after. Dean’s not sure if Cas sleeps these days — you never know with a powered down angel. So there’s a chance Cas isn’t listening when he says, quietly, into his shoulder, “I love you too, you know.”

An arm tightens around him. “Yes,” Cas agrees, and Dean falls asleep, and doesn’t wake again until morning.

\---

They drive back to the bunker in convoy because Cas refuses to ditch his piece-of-shit pickup truck. Dean gives him a hard time about it — _ we could be living it up in the Black Beauty here. Listening to some tunes — hell, we could pull over and make out in the back seat, maybe even get a little horizontal — _

Cas squints at him in answer. “We could do that anyway.”

Dean sulks. “You drive _ slow, _ man.”

He gets a thin smile of agreement. “You’re willing to wait.”

And he is. Fuck him, but he is.

They shower together before they hit the road. Memories of it drift through Dean’s head the whole day of driving — Cas pressing him back against the tile. Cas’s mouth, somehow even hotter than the spray. Cas’s fingers, exploring, pressing up inside him —

God_damn, _ but Dean needs to buy some lube.

Sam’s sitting at the table, buried in notes, when they walk in. “Hey,” says Dean loudly. “Look who I found.”

It’s a little rude of Sam to not look more surprised.

He’s smiling, though, relief shining out of his face. “Cas,” he says, and pulls him into a hug. “It’s good to have you home, man.”

When he pulls back, Cas is smiling too. It does something funny in Dean’s chest — the two of them together. His family. Here in his home.

“Gonna grab a bite to eat,” he says, a little roughly, and moves past them toward the kitchen before either of them can see the shining in his eyes.

He finds a container of leftover Chinese. Nukes it and grabs a fork. He walks back into the library just in time to hear Cas say, “Your brother and I are —”

Cas stops up short when he sees Dean. As if he expects Dean to fill in the blank.

What the hell are they? _ Banging. In loooove. _

“Gonna need to buy a bigger bed,” he says instead, around a mouthful of lo mein. “I’m thinking California king. We’ve got the budget for that, right, Sammy?”

For a moment, they both just stare at him.

Then Sam smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I think we can make that work.”

“Cool.” Dean glances back at Cas. There’s a helpless smile on his face, the sort of fondness that makes Dean’s heart skip a beat to realize _ he’s _ the one who caused it. “And we’re gonna want to enjoy that thing, so — what d’you say? Ready to get to work on how to fight God?”

Sam glances back at his stacks of notes. “Well — I’ve been putting together some ideas, and now that Cas is here, I’d like to run some by him — if you don’t mind —”

He’s looking at Cas, but he darts a glance sideways at Dean.

“You two get your research on,” Dean tells them. “I’m making dinner. How does everyone feel about burritos?”

**Author's Note:**

> ETA: a little late but I did do the [tumblr thing](https://gravelghosts.tumblr.com/post/189145651449/stealing-the-show-74k-e-1505-coda-deancas) if you want to reblog.
> 
> Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
